• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Idelto

Cryptocurrency news website

  • About
  • Monthly analysis
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
  • Bitcoin/Ethereum
  • How to invest in cryptocurrencies
  • News

Privacy & security

Bitcoiners Run Hardware

20/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

The internet, which is the network we currently use for our Bitcoin needs, was supposed to be decentralized, verifiable and private. But after decades of choosing comfort, ease and speed, the internet today is actually quite centralized, with millions of websites and services’ information stored in a few data centers, all of them served by a very limited number of regulated, or even state-owned providers. 

All users’ data travels through a reduced number of cables and cell towers and all of it is being identified, analyzed and allowed to go through most of the time, until now. Even the tools that are meant to liberate us from part of this global surveillance have to rely on this over-controlled infrastructure that is susceptible to attacks, seizures and censorship due to their (as desired by these tools themselves) centralized nature.

Some people believe that they can communicate and transact safely, privately and even anonymously on top of this vicious architecture because they are making use of tools that supposedly effectively hide or protect them from being easily identified — they defend the idea that they won’t be individually targeted or attacked, and that shutting down the internet in a whole region only to specifically disconnect them is too much; that neither the government nor other entities will go that far just to silence them. 

Not only has this happened already — it is happening more regularly. And the situation will only get worse because if the media we use to connect with each other are in reach of those wanting to censor or stop whatever could undermine their power, they’ll do it, no doubt.

2021 has only just begun and we are already seeing a glimpse of what lies ahead. From the targeted silencing of individuals, to the blockade of communities, the deplatforming of apps and services, the breaching and leaking of centrally-stored personally-identifiable information (PII), the levying of fines for accessing the internet through other means beyond those scrutinized by governments, and even the full shutting down of the internet in whole countries. 

Filling Bitcoin’s Infrastructure Gaps

All this just adds to what 2020 showed us. But, Bitcoin users are not affected, right? Well, that’s unfortunately not true. 

To be completely clear, we are all just being allowed to use Bitcoin today. They know we are accessing exchanges and hosted wallets from our homes’ and our phones’ IP addresses; they know we are seeding the full Bitcoin blockchain to others, they know we own a hardware wallet and that we check its balance daily (not only the price); they even know what we are running behind that VPN or that impenetrable anonymity tool we use to buy prohibited items like flags and plastic straws online. We’ll only continue being permitted to do what we do until they don’t want us to.

Luckily Bitcoin has a way to fix its own lack of a resilient infrastructure by continuing to do what it has been doing for the last decade: voluntarily coordinating the funding, development and implementation of solutions that fix each defective piece of the internet that might be undermining Bitcoin’s potential of becoming the censorship-resistant and private electronic cash that we all need. 

It all started with the creation of the hardest form of money ever made, solving problems that we thought were impossible before in a genius way.

Before Bitcoin itself falls into the pit of laziness and low time-preference in the search for swift, effortless (insecure and censorable) transactions by choosing to use IOUs instead of real, proof-of-work-backed bitcoin — mere digits stored in databases of custodial services whose stack runs on top of the infrastructure of the few, already-mentioned authorized service providers — the reborn cypherpunks have reminded us through their ideas that if we really wish to have permissionless freedom, we should not only encrypt our conversations and wait for enough confirmations, but also run our own hardware.

Thanks to them, we now have hardware wallets, because switching from centralized exchanges and hosted wallets services to lightweight wallets wasn’t enough. They even now lead the efforts to bring open-source secret elements to eliminate trusted parties completely from the equation. After it seemed that we were losing the fight against pools, miners are now updating toward a more individual and sovereign way of pooling. The few thousands of full nodes could easily be at the tens- or even hundreds of thousands in no time thanks to all of the amazing tools being built to make it as easy as possible to run the numbers, to run your own node, to run hardware.

But, what good can all of these innovations and tools be for amplifying the individual’s freedom when it all runs on top of the currently prone to be easily shut down, surveilled, targeted and seized centralized internet infrastructure? What solution do Bitcoiners have for such a crucial part of the stack needed for Bitcoin to exist? To thrive? 

The answer is hardware; Bitcoiners run hardware.

Bitcoiners Run Hardware

The part of the internet that currently poses a risk to our path to a truly unconfiscatable, permissionless, censorship-resistant Bitcoin are the internet providers (state owned and private), their cables, their towers and their desire to keep each and every one of their users identified and located at all times, tracked and surveilled. 

The solution to this Orwellian apparatus can be summarized as “own the cables,” or, even better, own the wireless radio frequencies by contributing to a self-sustained sovereign mesh network of hardware devices to build and provide access to the Bitcoin network, communications and data in a decentralized way, with no central servers and enough resilience to overcome any attempt at stopping us from exercising our rights to freedom of speech, of assembly and of trade.

Only open-source software and open-source hardware projects like Locha Mesh, with the goal of developing mesh networking hardware made specifically with all of this in mind, could potentially propel Bitcoin toward achieving its original plans. 

For the creation of sustainable, resilient and authoritarianism-resistant mesh networks, each user will need to be their own means of accessing the network for transmitting Bitcoin block data, transactions, messages, using apps and accessing services. They will need a mobile-first, battery-based device, small enough to be carried around in a concealed manner, so low in energy consumption that it can last for days on one charge or run on solar energy using small panels, versatile enough that can be customized for specific needs (longer range, stationary, attached to other hardware…) and open enough that it can be replicated by anyone anywhere, in case its production, distribution or even its use are also deemed to be a risk to the establishment.

This way, each person can become a node inside the peer-to-peer Locha Mesh network, routing messages that find paths through hops to reach their destinations; offering services; and connecting, transacting and getting paid in bitcoin for enabling others to exercise their rights in this crypto-anarchist, capitalist free market.

We Bitcoiners don’t only need to learn the basics of economics. Let’s open our eyes to the lies that keep the wheel moving toward the abduction of everyone’s liberties, learn the differences between custodial and non-custodial services, run the numbers, run the hardware, teach our children how to use a hardware wallet and teach our parents how to protect their wealth from state-induced inflation and expropriation. 

Let’s join the cypherpunks or become phreakers; if that’s what it takes to be able to have a truly permissionless Bitcoin, so be it.

This is a guest post by Randy Brito. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

The post Bitcoiners Run Hardware appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Filed Under: Bitcoin Magazine, English, Full Node, locha mesh, Mesh network, Privacy & security, Sovereignty

Achieving Bitcoin Anonymity Through Mixers

12/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

This is a promoted article provided by BitMix.Biz

A bitcoin mixer, also known as a bitcoin blender or tumbler, is a service designed to ensure the anonymity of Bitcoin transactions using a special mixing algorithm where bitcoin from several sources are combined and mixed to rid coins of compromising traces of past transactions to hide their origin and protect the privacy and anonymity of users.

The architecture of the cryptocurrency is designed in such a way that each of the Bitcoin transactions is recorded in the public, unaltered registry on the blockchain, so that any member of the community can verify the validity of any coins transfer.

The trust in Bitcoin and, accordingly, its value in the users’ eyes is based on this. However, the use of Bitcoin itself is pseudonymous, not anonymous. This opens up opportunities for various intruders who want to find out who owns digital funds in specific wallets, usually containing large amounts of crypto, or who want to track the finances of a specific person and their origins.

“Various criminal gangs hack crypto exchanges and extract data about you and your Bitcoin address, thanks to the mandatory KYC/AML verification requirements, when you are forced to confirm your personal data, and then, using analyzers, they can find your main BTC wallet,” explained a representative of bitcoin mixer service BitMix.Biz.

Dangers Of Deanonymization

In June 2020, the marketing base of the French Bitcoin hardware wallet company Ledger was hacked, exposing a vulnerability in a system that was once considered to be one of the safest ways to store cryptocurrencies. The result of this hack was the leak of personal data and contact information of about 1 million users — that is, their names, surnames, mailing addresses, email addresses and phone numbers, as well as information about customer orders.

Although company representatives said at the time that this leak of personal data had no effect on their Ledger hardware wallets and their security, as well as on the safety of the company’s customers’ cryptocurrency, the leak poses a real danger. This appeared fully six months later, just before Christmas, when the stolen data appeared in the public domain on the darknet.

Now that user data had been disclosed, it is easy to use Bitcoin analysis programs to see how much cryptocurrency each individual has from the compromised database, as well as the origin of the coins. This information can be used, for example, by the tax service or other special services, and this is far from the worst possible consequence of a leak.

People from the stolen list became targets of phishing attacks and then the victims began to receive letters containing threats of physical violence, which would be easy to implement with the obtained data of physical addresses. Attackers are extorting the equivalent of $500 in Bitcoins for abandoning their intentions, but paying the ransom does not guarantee security or that attackers will not again extort money from victims in the future.

In recent years, there have been many reports of attacks, abductions and even murders of cryptocurrency holders, whose data has been compromised in one way or another, regardless of whether the users shared it themselves on the internet (for example, on social networks) or if it was stolen as a result of some kind of leak. This is why, if you are using or just holding cryptocurrency, you need to be extra careful.

An expert from BitMix.Biz said that: “Knowing your real data and information about the current balance of your BTC wallet, attackers can trick or, even by brute force, make you give them your funds. With Bitcoin mixers, you can break this chain.”

Using a Bitcoin mixing service can provide an extra layer of privacy that can help protect your digital finances from hackers and blockchain analytics companies, thus protecting you and your family from intruders. And Bitcoin blenders are surprisingly easy to use these days.

Use Maximum Mixing Abilities

Bitcoin mixing services have come a long way since Bitcoin was first introduced. The result of years of trial and error, undertaken by various crypto enthusiasts in an attempt to achieve the maximum level of anonymity, BitMix.Biz has absorbed the best, eliminating known disadvantages.

The service offers multilingual support, altcoin integration and other internet access methods such as Tor, Clearnet and NoJS. Users can set individual mixing fees in the range of 0.4 to 4 percent, making it even more difficult for potential attackers to analyze their blockchain activity. They can also use a “randomize” option, which, after mixing, will send more than one transaction from the mixing service to your wallet, which they target for the cleared coins, making it more difficult to analyze their cryptocurrency transaction.

“We ask for the minimum information required, solely to ensure that the harddrive is encrypted and never stores any logs,” explained the BitMix.Biz team. “All records are deleted after 72 hours or immediately upon request via the order page.”

BitMix.Biz maintains the world’s largest reserve of mixed bitcoin, so there is no need to wait for consensus of multiple mixing transactions. When a user completes a transaction by sending coins to the mixer, they instantly receive pre-cleared bitcoin from this huge pool to their address. After your first exchange of your coins for cleared ones, you receive a special code that will prevent you from receiving any of the previous bitcoin that you sent in any subsequent transactions.

A minimum of 0.005 BTC is required to use the Bitcoin mixing service BitMix.Biz. You can save your settings of the website to duplicate the mix types that you would like to use again. The Bitcoin tumbler service also supports an affiliate program that provides instant payouts for every transaction made by a referred user, as well as an API key that websites can use to provide mixed bitcoin, litecoin and dash to their customers, taking care of their customers’ safety and increasing their loyalty.

Finally, the Bitcoin mixer BitMix.Biz provides a letter of guarantee as an additional promise of integrity as well as a security measure.

“When we provide you with our Bitcoin address to which your coins should be sent for mixing, we digitally sign in a letter of guarantee to confirm that this address was indeed generated by our server,” the BitMix.Biz spokesperson said.

In addition, if any failure occurs, then with the help of a letter of guarantee within 72 hours, you can prove that you sent your coins to the service in order to resolve the issue. Another reason to entrust your cryptocurrency to this particular Bitcoin blender is a unique guarantee — a deposit of $15,000 on a special service that BitMix.Biz created to compensate for the unlikely losses of users, which allows you to trust the mixer even for large amounts of cryptocurrency. 

You can learn more about BitMix.Biz on YouTube, Twitter, Bitcoin Wiki and Bitcointalk.

The post Achieving Bitcoin Anonymity Through Mixers appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Filed Under: Bitcoin Magazine, Bitcoin Mixing, BitMix.Biz, English, Privacy & security, Sponsored

Human Rights Foundation Provides Grants To Specter, Lot49

12/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

YouTube Video

Listen To This Episode:

  • Apple
  • Spotify
  • Google
  • Libsyn
  • Overcast

The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) has announced the latest beneficiaries of its ongoing Bitcoin Development Fund: Bitcoin developer Ben Kaufman and the team at Global Mesh Labs will each receive grants of $25,000.

HRF launched its fund last year and it has supported privacy- and sovereignty-enhancing Bitcoin projects like CoinSwap, JoinInbox, Zeus, Fully Noded and package relay. This latest round of grants was backed by cryptocurrency exchange Gemini and its Gemini Opportunity Fund.

Kaufman will be using the grant to improve Specter Desktop, an interface that makes interacting with Bitcoin Core much more user friendly. The project aligns with HRF’s focus on sovereignty, as it makes it easier to run a full Bitcoin node free of reliance from any third-party service.

“Specter is optimized to allow users to fully harness the power of hardware wallets, air-gapped devices and multisignature setups, and is aimed at expanding the number of Bitcoin full nodes and strengthening Bitcoin’s decentralization,” according to an HRF press release shared with Bitcoin Magazine. “Ben’s work on Specter will make it easier than ever for anyone to be their own bank.”

The team at Global Mesh Labs, which includes Richard Myers, Fodé Diop and Will Clark, are working on Lot49, an Android application that adapts Bitcoin and Lightning Network implementations to serve regions with low and intermittent internet connectivity.

“With Lot49, Richard, Fodé and Will aim to make Bitcoin more usable in mobile-first environments with spotty internet connectivity, unstable currencies and poor infrastructure,” according to the release.

HRF is working to raise additional support for the Bitcoin Development Fund and to award grants to several Bitcoin projects per year. Gifts, which are tax deductible, can be made through HRF.org/DevFund and support proposals can be submitted to [email protected]

The post Human Rights Foundation Provides Grants To Specter, Lot49 appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Filed Under: bitcoin development, Bitcoin Magazine, bitcoin magazine podcast, English, global mesh labs, grants, human rights foundation, lot49, Podcast, Privacy & security, specter, Video

Interview: Securing Bitcoin With Anchorage’s Diogo Monica

07/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

YouTube Video

Listen To This Episode:

  • Apple
  • Spotify
  • Google
  • Libsyn
  • Overcast

On this episode of the “Bitcoin Magazine Podcast,” host CK sat down with the cofounder and president of Anchorage Custody, Diogo Monica, to talk about the innovative ways that Anchorage is creating better cold storage conditions for institutional bitcoin and crypto asset storage.

Anchorage has become a complete turnkey platform for institutions to leverage in order to build out their bitcoin and other cryptocurrency strategies. Monica has a deep history in securing private keys and mission-critical private information. He led up security at Square and then at Docker.

On this episode, CK and Diogo discussed the following topics:

  • Anchorage as a qualified custodian
  • OCC clarity for commercial banks
  • Who is using Anchorage? 
  • Anchorage filed for a national banking charter 
  • How to create better than cold storage 
  • What is Anchorage seeing from bitcoin custodial demand?
  • Crypto vs. Bitcoin
  • What is the mindset and knowledge base of Anchorage customers

The post Interview: Securing Bitcoin With Anchorage’s Diogo Monica appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Filed Under: Anchorage, Bitcoin Magazine, bitcoin magazine pocast, custody, English, Podcast, Privacy & security, Video

Not Your Node, Not Your Validation

04/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

From afar, the Terracotta Army seems to exhibit homogeneous redundancy, but each soldier’s unique facial features portrays a rather diverse army. Source.

Part 1: The Redundant Reminder Of Node Redundancy

“It won’t succeed unless the user experience is simply better than trusted third parties, but we need to start the education process with the very basic fundamental: trusting a third-party with full access to your Bitcoin is just replacing one centralized banking system with another.”

Eric Martindale

For those in the crypto space who are relatively versed in Bitcoin language, we’ve all heard the proverbial “run your own node” preached throughout Bitcoin literature many times. It’s synonymous and up there with “not your keys, not your crypto” or “HODL.”

Regardless if they are adhered to by the crypto community, they do hold their own merit and ways of conjuring up regret at the worst moments. Human nature tends to make the same mistakes again; Mt.Gox, QuadrigaCX, OKEx, etc.

Then why do we continue to keep falling into the same mistakes time after time?

Because of ease. It’s very easy to open an account with a centralized exchange and keep your bitcoin on there. It’s also extremely easy to buy high and sell low when the concomitant FUD infiltrates our decisions.

But one area of the Bitcoin ecosystem that really hasn’t captured too much retail attention, let alone usage, is running your own bitcoin node. It’s one of the few areas of bitcoin that has not been “institutionalized” or “monetized.” For good reason though, as it’s not supposed to generate monetary incentives. Rather, it consumes costs that are somewhat linear to blocks mined. It was designed to be grown in a grassroots manner rather than the other financially-motivated areas of mining, trading and custody.

When one runs his/her own node, they don’t have to rely on a third party to broadcast, propagate, validate and confirm their transactions. They are completely self-sovereign in this manner.

Therefore, to take the earlier mentioned “not your keys, not your crypto,” idiom, the same spirit can be applied as “not your node, not your validation.”

As the crypto community embraces the third bitcoin bull run, the inevitable next generation of Bitcoin believers will venture down the rabbit hole. This will undoubtedly put more demand, and possibly strain, on third-party services that are already in place ranging from wallet providers, exchanges and even on the mining network. Subsequently, this will also naturally demand an increase of the amount of nodes running. But by whom?

“Members of the bitcoin community seem to be losing interest in hosting full nodes. And it’s something to pay attention to, because over time it might mean that the major companies in the industry may have to pick up the slack.” – Daniel Cawrey

The bitcoin community can be divisive at times between the amount of redundancy of having a certain amount of nodes in the network. Does it help the network or does it help the individual?

It’s isomorphic.

Source

But the key word here is “redundancy.” As in the same ecosystemic redundancy witnessed in nature. 

Parrotfish is a species that feeds on the small algae of bio-rich corals under sea. This act alone is essential for the survival of corals to flourish on a seabed full of rivals. In a scenario when the parrotfish species dies out, a collection of other similar functioning species, such as the surgeon fish and rabbitfish, are there to fill the void. This redundancy in terms of our natural ecosystem provides a gradation of resilience to the system as a unit.

Another example that supports this redundancy in biodiversity is seed dispersion done by a range of differently-sized species, which is pervasive in any forest throughout the planet. If one subset of species goes extinct, another subset can fill that void without any downtime. But there is a more precarious caveat in which the extinction of the larger species in size have been researched to inhibit a larger disturbance to the local ecosystem versus its similarly-functioning small species.

“…larger species in size have been researched to inhibit a larger disturbance…”

In short, redundancy manifests the proverbial “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. ”And it’s this redundancy, which can also be conflated with diversity (we’ll use both terms interchangeably in this piece to make a general point), that is essential to the systems of nature, society, machines, governments, etc. 

When the first string quarterback goes down with an ACL tear, the second string man comes up, who might perform even better. When a subset of Bitcoin nodes suffers some internet outage, the rest of the nodes can easily pick up the slack of validating transactions. It’s a form of risk insurance on network threats. It’s fault tolerant. And this gets cheaper as more smaller individuals run nodes, rather than placing them in the hands of bigger players prone to centralized attacks.

The sentiment has been preached throughout the corners of the crypto world and it is crystal clear: Everyone should run their own node. But it will take some more education, easy-to-use tools or, god forbid, another type of accidental chain fork to wake the masses. By providing users with an all-in-one node kit setup (more at the end), the ease and importance of running a node will be galvanized.

The ubiquity of nodes is not yet present. But the rush of a seemingly hazardous government interest can be the cataclysm that the network needs to push beyond its reach. This could also be characterized as that diversity, or network resiliency. 

On that note, attempts at placing nodes in space are still works in progress (although Blockstream’s satellites can be considered “close enough” at the moment).

We’ve always been functioned to strive for maximum efficiencies, but the value of redundancy and diversity is higher, though at the sacrifice of costs.

“The resource requirements of a full node are moving beyond the capabilities of casual users. This isn’t inherently a problem – after all, most people don’t grow their own food, tailor their own clothes, or keep blacksmith tools handy in to forge their own horseshoes either.”

Justus Ranvier

To circle back to the beginning, ease has subsequently led to reliance. Reliance can be misconstrued as laziness or even lack of knowledge. These characteristics are prime meat for entities in taking care of things for you, in more ways than one. But running nodes is one area of the Bitcoin ecosystem we don’t want institutions to start pouring in to. Hypothetically, if that ever happens, then they dictate your transaction validations. And in the context of ecosystemic redundancy, as Marten Scheffer of Wageningen University has stated, “While redundancy may be the rule in smaller creatures, the functional uniqueness of larger ones could imply that they are often the Achilles heel for ecological functioning.”

Part 2: What Is The Node Ecosystem Like Now?

Currently and historically, capturing an accurate number of the bitcoin full nodes that are up and running has been a less than perfect science. According to bitnodes.io, which is a community-developed platform still in beta, there are close to 11,000 nodes running a full node client. This number is what it deems as “reachable” or, as others would more accurately say, “listening nodes.” Other sources, including Luke Dashjr, have stated that the number of nodes is much larger, in the area between 50,000 and 100,000, maybe more, which includes private nodes.

In the chart seen from coin.dance, the number of nodes more than doubled after the 2017 bull run, from around 5,000 to a current reading of over 10,000. Although there is no perfect linear relationship between the amount of transactions and number of nodes, the trend is clear.

Source: Coin Dance

Running a full node can be complex and daunting for users. And, unlike miners, node operators don’t receive transaction fees or rewards. There are some costs attached to running a node, although miniscule, which include having extra disk space and internet bandwidth. These costs may be miniscule, but they could increase as the bitcoin transaction history increases.

Besides going the direct raw route and downloading the Bitcoin Core software with some complexity and limited features, there have been a host of providers out there providing Bitcoin full node products that not only allow you to sync the whole transaction history of blocks, but provide a plethora of features such as multisig, Tor, user-friendly UI, Lightning Network full nodes, the necessary hardware and more. The most notable providers are Casa Node, Nodl One, Lux Node, BitBoxBase, myNode, Umbrel and even the HTC Exodus 1 mobile solution.

These different providers are the redundancy we need that also can exhibit small beneficial nuances related to diversity in form, speed and resilience to disturbances in the network.

Sources:

  1. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151008142620.htm
  2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0519-1
  3. https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-nodes-need
  4. http://luke.dashjr.org/programs/bitcoin/files/charts/security.html
  5. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/buy-or-diy-an-overview-of-7-bitcoin-full-node-products

This is a guest post by Eric Choy. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

The post Not Your Node, Not Your Validation appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Filed Under: Bitcoin Magazine, English, Full Node, Privacy & security, Sovereignty

  • Page 1
  • Page 2
  • Page 3
  • …
  • Page 26
  • Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Archives

Recents articles

  • Montana County to Hold Public Hearings on Zoning Rules for Crypto Miners Amid Growing Complaints
  • Privacy-Centric Cryptocurrency Firo Suffers 51% Attack on Its Network
  • Vaneck Files for Crypto ETF That Gives Investors Exposure to Equity in Digital Asset Companies
  • Cantillon Effect 2.0: Bitcoin Is The World’s First Truly Fair Money
  • Bitcoin Near ‘Extreme Bubble’ but Tesla More Vulnerable: Deutsche Bank Survey
  • Discussing Bitcoin Core 0.21.0
  • Buying the Dip: Multibillion-Dollar Microstrategy Invests $10 Million More in Bitcoin
  • Bitcoin 2017 Vs. 2021: How This Bull Run Is Different

© 2021 · Idelto · Site design ONVA ONLINE